How do you get through to racists who have utterly dejected the term "racist"?

[Brainwreck]

I heard ice picks were pretty good at getting through their thick skulls.
Wait, that's horrible, and I'm sure Trotsky is staring very angrily at me right now from some lonely corner of the bolshevik afterlife.
Then again, he was a dick, so I'm not all that upset about it.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Watching it, I got sad, and then amused, and then sad again, and concerned, and after five minutes of it all I could feel was worried. These people have, in all sincerity, taken up the mantle of believing that anti-racism is actually anti-white.

Gosh, why would they do that? Maybe because the vast majority actually is that. Militant minorities who demand special privilege in the form of racist staffing policies and such ussually hold racist grudges against whites.

If anything, worry about how you could dismiss the possibility of some of them being right so easily, and just heap them all onto one big pile.

For one thing, anti-white racist policies are a fact for most countries. Together with atheists and in some cases homosexuals, white people are the only group you can legally discriminate against.

I'll believe it when I see it. I'm not going to dismiss that there are probably anti-white policies in place in a lot of countries, but let's be honest, these people are talking about US race relations. They're talking about keeping their white neighbourhoods white. There's a way to criticize anti-white racism, and these people have apparently chosen more racism.

I think the biggest thing is that they have, you know, convinced themselves that anyone and everyone who is "anti-racist" is actually anti-white. When I say, "I want to put an end to racial discrimination," they think their heads "oh, so you want to take away my rights as a white person!" That's blowing what little racism against whites there is (and it is there, and it is a problem) WAAAAY out of proportion.

I've always liked to look at it this way. Rights movements should be focused on knocking down barriers. Gays, African Americans, women... they've been excluded for a long, long time, and their rights movements are about making sure those societal walls are removed so everyone can be on the same side. When you get to things like Men's Rights, White Rights... you're taking a group that has, by society, been very much "in control" for a long, long time; you mix it with a bit of paranoia and you end up with a "movement" that is set to put up more restrictions that it disallows. There are people who genuinely believe that giving someone else the same rights you have are as good as taking yours away, and that's the kind of people these folks come across as.

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

Ok now offense here but the people in the video there. They have the general american accent, yet they speak for other "white countries".
God that so bad..."Im not talking about a final solution to the race problem. I'm talking about a final solution to the black problem.
Also how they label countries as being white, black and asian etc. I just try to ignore them and accept their little problems of limited view...Is that racist?
Captcha: Gregory peck

 

[SonicWaffle]

I think the biggest thing is that they have, you know, convinced themselves that anyone and everyone who is "anti-racist" is actually anti-white. When I say, "I want to put an end to racial discrimination," they think their heads "oh, so you want to take away my rights as a white person!" That's blowing what little racism against whites there is (and it is there, and it is a problem) WAAAAY out of proportion.

Well, that's kinda how these things work. Remember the War On Christmas? Remember how Christians are the most persecuted people in the world? Remember how the emancipation of women is an attempt to enslave men?

Of course you don't, because all those things are ludicrous fantasy, but all are drawn from tiny incidents which are then overblown in an attempt to present them as an epidemic. In every case it's people attempting to end discrimination, and the people who've been doing the discriminating swooning and loudly telling everyone they're under attack.

Seeing the same happen with race relations is, sadly, not even a little bit surprising when this phenomenon is so common that we have people claiming that not letting them own anti-tank missiles or stopping them from forcing children into a mandated prayer session is "persecuting" them.

 

[Darken12]

I'm going to explain this as simply as I can:

Almost nobody wants to feel like like a villain.

Before the emergence of the civil rights movement, nobody felt like a villain for being racist because it was accepted as normal/natural/justified. Everybody was doing it.
After the emergence of the civil rights movement, parts of the world were still the same, but the places where things had changed were met with an outpour of anger and hatred towards racist people. Being racist was being a villain. And almost nobody wants to be a villain.
However, people also resist change and have trouble empathising with others, particularly those who accuse them of something that makes them a villain or try to get them to change their behaviour for reasons they cannot comprehend.
This, naturally, led to formerly racist people to believe that they were the victims, because the people of colour were calling them villains and demanding punishment for things that were perfectly normal for them, and asking them to change traditional behaviour for reasons that racists couldn't empathise with.

And that's how you get to that video. The only way you're ever going to get through to those people is by reassuring them that you don't want to vilify or punish them, that you only want to educate them and teach them empathy so that they can understand where you're coming from. As much as I'd like to just forget those people even exist, ignorance isn't going to disappear on its own or by browbeating the shit out of it with angry accusations. We need patience. Ungodly amounts of patience.

 

[bat32391]

A lead pipe to the head might work, too bad its illegal though. I swear, its shit like this that makes me wish I could make people like this just disappear.

 

[Legion]

I'm sort of on Smash's side on this. I've had two friends that went over there to do school (both wanted to be English teachers at Japanese schools). They got treated really bad by 5 different host families. It's more of they don't cause you problems... as long as you don't need them for anything. According to my friends, they have a strong country-wide xenophobia against many people, mostly Europeans.

I could name a dozen racist people I know off of the top of my head. I wouldn't say that England is a racist country on the whole though. Hell, London is pretty much known for being the multicultural capital of the world.

The point I am making is that you know two people who went over there and struggled with racism. I know two people who went over there and didn't. It's hardly a strong indication of a country on the whole being racist.

Just like me knowing a lot of racists doesn't show that my own country is racist in general.

 

[Patrick Buck]

I know I'm generalizing....
But the second the video started up, and a thick Texan drawl started up, I already knew where this was going to go.
And I'm really upset I was right.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm going to explain this as simply as I can:

Almost nobody wants to feel like like a villain.

Before the emergence of the civil rights movement, nobody felt like a villain for being racist because it was accepted as normal/natural/justified. Everybody was doing it.
After the emergence of the civil rights movement, parts of the world were still the same, but the places where things had changed were met with an outpour of anger and hatred towards racist people. Being racist was being a villain. And almost nobody wants to be a villain.
However, people also resist change and have trouble empathising with others, particularly those who accuse them of something that makes them a villain or try to get them to change their behaviour for reasons they cannot comprehend.
This, naturally, led to formerly racist people to believe that they were the victims, because the people of colour were calling them villains and demanding punishment for things that were perfectly normal for them, and asking them to change traditional behaviour for reasons that racists couldn't empathise with.

And that's how you get to that video. The only way you're ever going to get through to those people is by reassuring them that you don't want to vilify or punish them, that you only want to educate them and teach them empathy so that they can understand where you're coming from. As much as I'd like to just forget those people even exist, ignorance isn't going to disappear on its own or by browbeating the shit out of it with angry accusations. We need patience. Ungodly amounts of patience.

That's a very good explanation there.

I'd also add that there are plenty of people that recognise that racism is wrong, but who find it easier to convince themselves that they aren't racist than to avoid being racist. Not being racist is no small thing. You don't suddenly wake up one morning and all the societal influences that make someone racist suddenly don't affect you.

I don't believe anyone that says they are free of prejudice. Someone that says they'd like to be, that they try hard to be, that I can believe. But saying you see or treat everyone the same is saying you are perfect in regards to that issue, and nobody should believe someone claiming to be perfect.

 

[Bvenged]

That's an incredibly stupid video, made stupider by the fact that they kept looking down at their script. Couldn't they memorise a sentence at a time and then speak? There's enough cuts in that video to hide it.

Anti-racism = anti-white? How the hell did they come to that conclusion?

I've got nothing to add to the discussion against this video because it's - simply put - a stupid opinion and I wholeheartedly disagree with it. Nothing but a deluded racist groups' video.

 

[DataSnake]

Why do you need to get through to them? Why does it matter to you if they hold these views?

Here's why:

Spoiler

But on a more serious note:

Dont get me wrong, I'm not having a go at you nor am I supporting them. Ultimately though these people hold these values and beliefs and for you or I to actively try and force our own views on them makes us no better.

Nobody's talking about forcing different beliefs on them, the OP was asking how to persuade them to stop being dipshits. There's a world of difference there.

There are non-racist nazis?

I mean really non-racist ones not ones that just say they aren't racist because they think you're going to kick their teeth in for being racist dickbags.

Don't know how prevalent it is nowadays, but when I read up on US prisons a few years back, I found that a lot of white dudes wind up having to join neo-Nazi gangs just so they'll have someone watching their back, whether they actually buy into the whole "master race" ideology or not.

I didn't watch all of it, because I like to keep my sanity, but to some extent the idiots have a point. The entire concept of "ethnic pride = good" (manifested in hilarious concepts such as 'Black History Month' accross the pond) is completely a counterproductive sort of pride.

From what I recall, the purpose of "Black History Month" isn't ethnic pride, it's to shine a light on important figures who would otherwise be overlooked because they weren't mentioned much in history books made before the 1960s.

I don't know how things are handled in the US since I've never been there (I suppose it varies heavily from state to state) but if you guys handle the whole slavery thing the way we Germans handle Hitler

Not even close. For one thing, we allow civil war reenactments. We also still have people openly flying confederate flags, as well as multiple [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Daughters_of_the_Confederacy] organizations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Confederate_Veterans] dedicated to honoring the confederate cause, though they usually spout some crap about "the civil war not being about slavery".

 

[briankoontz]

"They tell us, 'Africa is for the Africans! Asia is for the Asians! But white countries are for everyone!'"

So how... how do you talk to people like this? I'm convinced it's a kind of insanity - they have made up (or just poorly interpreted or inferred meaning from) arguments, argue against those arguments, and in doing so completely and utterly cement mistruths in themselves. How do you fight such things? You could ignore it, but others won't. How do you get through to someone who has built up such impeccable defense regarding people changing their minds?

Arguments, even the best ones, don't mean a lot. Look at it this way - is someone going to follow the logic of what his entire life tells him to do or what some random person tells him to do?

It's not insanity - the purpose is propaganda. The idea is to build upon the idea that whites are unfairly maligned - to get the world to back off on injustices perpetrated largely by whites so that rich people have even more ability to do whatever that want in the world, at the expense of the rest of the world.

This video is part of the global class war.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

NO! Bad Southern hicks, that's a bad bad Southern hick!

That's how you talk to them.

Seriously? Men's Rights movement, now a White's Rights movement? What's going to be the next "activism" movement that's used as a thin guise for bigotry? Straight's rights?

what if us, white straight men, want a parade in OUR honor?
as it stands we have black pride, women's rights and gay pride parade, the strong and independant, black lesbians get all the fun.

on a serious note, I sorta agree with you, saying things that provoke people into discrimination, ignorance or even violance is not okay, especially when you can hide behind the excuse of it being "just an opinion".

 

[SeanSeanston]

Seriously? Men's Rights movement

Oh come on, that's perfectly legitimate when you see how fathers' rights are often treated etc. Let's not pretend this is some kind of zero sum game where if you're in favour of X then you're against Y. If people can have feminist movements and women's rights movements (as opposed to simply "gender equality" which one would think would cover all possibilities) then it seems rather childish to not allow others those same equal rights without glaring at them with suspicion. Kind of seems to undermine one's position as being rather disingenuous when one is so defensive about other people having a voice regarding their own rights, as though it's something so amazingly threatening.

When you get to things like Men's Rights, White Rights... you're taking a group that has, by society, been very much "in control" for a long, long time;

But what difference does that make? We don't live in a long, long time: we live right now. It's not justifiable to point to things in the past (i.e. that don't exist) about people who lived in the past (i.e. who don't exist) and use it to make judgements on the present (i.e. things that do exist).

You can't make the world treat people more equally by treating people unequally. That just looks childish and bitter.

 

[Blunderboy]

If you could get through to racists there wouldn't be any of them.

 

[Signa]

One important distinction here that no one seems to have fully addressed. Everyone has been using the word "racist" in place of the word "bigot." That's fine, but the problem is the word "racist" gets thrown around so much, it's lost its meaning while still holding its strongly negative connotations. It's not "racist" to call some one black who has dark skin, or point out that Asians have squinty eyes. It's racist in the strictest definition of the word, but that doesn't make you a bigot for noticing those differences. It makes you a bigot when you see those differences and believe that they are incapable of something unrelated, like how a black man can't do math.

I didn't watch the video, but if this is where some of their feelings come from, I can understand. From what other posters have said though, it sounds like they took those feelings far too far.

 

[Silvanus]

From what I recall, the purpose of "Black History Month" isn't ethnic pride, it's to shine a light on important figures who would otherwise be overlooked because they weren't mentioned much in history books made before the 1960s.

This. Minority groups having events to shine the spotlight on their history and heritage is a reaction to the trend of media & public discourse to be eurocentric, heteronormative, & unbalanced.

 

[Gecko clown]

Using the words "final solution" to describe diversity, classy, very classy.

Its unfortunate that all the people in this video are from the southern states because I've been waiting for an excuse to not think that they're all hicks.